Apparatuses for dispensing rolls of materials, such as tape, are available in various forms. For example, the apparatus may be fixed in one location (such as a desk tape dispenser) while a desired amount of material is unwound from the roll. The apparatus may also be hand held to permit direct application of the material on the roll to a substrate.
Although hand held dispensers can be an efficient method for applying a roll of material to a substrate, there have been problems associated with their use. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,961,525; 5,363,997; 5,468,332; 5,878,932; and 5,921,450 disclose open hand held dispensers. These dispensers generally have some type of support member to which the tape roll is mounted to permit rotation of the roll on the support member. The tape is then cut by a blade present on the dispenser. This type of dispenser however has the disadvantage of being more readily susceptible to contamination because the tape roll is, for the most part, open to the atmosphere. Additionally, it is a common problem for the free tape end to adhere back to the roll after use, making it difficult to find the free tape end prior to the next use.
EP 0779 875 B1 discloses an enclosed tape dispenser that may be hand held, that includes a housing for holding a roll of tape. The housing is formed of two side pieces that are held together by a removable pin located near the dispensing end of the dispenser. The one side piece contains a holder for holding the roll of tape and the other side piece serves primarily as a cover to cover the roll of tape. To load a roll of tape into the dispenser, the two side pieces of the housing must be completely separated and then reassembled once the tape is loaded. This however permits the possibility of pieces being lost or the dispenser being improperly reassembled during loading of a roll of tape. For simplicity, it would be desirable to provide a dispenser that does not need to be completely separated to load a roll of tape and is easily loaded with a roll of material.
The present invention provides an improved apparatus for dispensing a roll of material such as pressure sensitive tape. The apparatus of the present invention (also referred to as a “dispenser”) preferably has few parts, and preferably remains connected as one piece during loading of a roll of material into the dispenser.